As a septuagenarian, here is an overabundance of noise on the Internet and Social Media put forth by people whose aim it seems is to separate you from your money offering advice and high-priced packages that offer no guarantee of even a modicum of success.

Let’s face it, how hard is any individual going to submerse themselves into a book, video or audio package when life and overdue bills are staring them in the face while wondering if tomorrow they will become unemployed as corporations and laying employees off.

One can see that corporations are only interested in one thing, their shareholders, and CEOs, and not employees. Immigrants are not the cause of the loss of jobs as many government officials espouse. Automation and corporate greed have done more to decimate the middle-class working family than Immigrants over the course of the past several decades.

Politicians claim there is no war on the poor and middle class.

Starting in the 1970s, look at Social Security. People pay for Social Security through payroll taxes to safeguard form retirement since many companies didn’t have retirement packages or lost them through Wall Street Investments. The government when to the Supreme Court loaded with conservative justices and won the right to call Social Security an entitlement and could use the money for funding government.

Now the Conservatives want to eliminate both Medicare and Social Security which are funded through payroll taxes and squander money in areas that accomplish only lessen the quality of life and living standard while seeking in creative a class of slaves for the rich by people who have been in Congress longer than many of their constituents have been alive and completely out of touch with reality. While the working class lives on a budget to keep from living in utter poverty the Government is running such massive deficits that our great-great-grandchildren’s great-great-grandchildren will be lucky to pay off if there is any world left for them with the pollution and atmospheric changes the current corporate and government is willing to leave for them.

We have already seen the death of the Great Barrier Reef, the extinction of many species of animals, destruction of rain forests, pollution of rivers and lakes, fish in the oceans that are inedible because of mercury and radiation. Why some in Congress care? They’re rich and their children don’t need to worry because they will never have to work a day in their life like the other eighty to ninety percent of the people wondering how to pay for health care, prescriptions, and generalized living expenses as most Americans do.

What many fail to realize is that America is the only country without a designated language and the highest prescriptions and medical cost of any modern industrial nation on Planet Earth.

America is slowly slipping from the ranks of most educated and well-read amongst many nations.

Looking Forward to Twenty-Eighteen

Contrary to the noise, the only person responsible for the success or failure of my second career is ME!

Amidst a litany of medical conditions one of which I have some lingering side effects today preclude me from working anywhere else but from home.

As individuals, we are the only ones responsible for our lives past, present, and future. If there were ever a time to put on the adult pants, that time is now for we can rely only on ourselves for our own lives.

Partnerships are only good for each person taking one-hundred percent responsibility for making the relationship work.

I chose as my second career one that is singularly individual, frustrating with steep learning curve because learning only comes from doing and practicing to ever improve; each day is a new beginning to strive for being better than the day before. Perfection is never the end game but only to be better than the day before. The career I chose is one that my it nature is a solitary existence and one that is good for a person due to certain physical limitations must be a partial recluse.

My second career seemed the first choice as someone who is an avid reader of all genres from the classics to contemporary but must state a preference for some long dead composition.

I choose to peddle my wares, as some have suggested lower than I should that hurts their rates, I choose to work with newer authors to help them create the best composition possible on a meeting of the minds.

Editing is somewhat subjective while following given grammatical, punctuational, spelling, and typographical rules. One must also consider sentence structure and linguistic norms.

As Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

That quote says it all. Authors write for themselves but also with a reader in mind. Anyone aspiring toward authorship must keep in mind that being an author is akin to an entrepreneur.

Authors need a platform, a website, marketing, a following, PR, social media, publishing, editing, proofreading, formatting, indexing, bookkeeping, and more. Sounds like an entrepreneur doesn’t it. Yes, writing is a business and deserves to be handled as one.

To this end, for twenty-eighteen, I will be removing distractions, taking some online courses and dive into reading the numerous books on style and others to improve over last year and allow more time in my day for many creative endeavors.

The biggest challenge is determining what is working or isn’t working when it comes to promotion and branding for what I loosely call a career with only a few one of clients.

I must be more proactive in finding clients willing to trust that I can deliver quality.

My second Career:

Freelance Writer

Blogger

Editor

Proofreader

Reviewer

Learning Marketing and Branding

Twenty-eighteen, a new beginning and a better year than twenty-seventeen!

Author

Robert Medak

Please feel free to comment or begin a discussion on this post or any post on this blog.

Anxiety, Diabetes Type 2, Gout, Hypercholesterolemia, Meniere’s Disease, Neuropathy, Osteoarthritis, Osteopenia, Pernicious Anemia, and Supraventricular Tachycardia. I have a small pharmacy in my home because of these conditions.

The week of November 15, 2015 was not a good one for me. This is not an excuse for not keeping up with reading and learning about how to increase traffic and marketing my services online. It just takes longer.

On Wednesday November 15, 2015, my wife and I needed to run some errands. While out of the house, many physical manifestations began to arise. Their toll felt for days afterward.

I am grateful to be able to work from home with no supervisor hovering over me, wondering why I’m not busting hump on the latest project. I did have some problems with supervisors at my job with PacBell, a contributing factor to my retiring early. I retired at age 58.

As age crept up on me, so did other medical conditions. Cataract surgery for one. These are the “Golden years”.

If you are living with health issues

First, create a sick day plan.

The sick day plan should include working on some aspect of your business. Being under the weather doesn’t mean you give up. It only means you may have to rearrange your schedule.

Second, keeping up with clients.

If a time comes when you are not 100 percent, you need to contact your client and let them know, especially if any illness may adversely affect the timeline you’ve given them for their contracted project.

Looking like an amateur to your client is horrendous to your business and personal reputation by not keeping them up to date on their project.

Third, always keep as healthy as possible.

When working, you must consider making time for yourself. You must eat, exercise, and take mental health breaks to maintain optimal health. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is important for you and your business. If you are not 100 percent, your business won’t be either.

Your health is more important than your business if you work from home as a freelancer or consultant.

I can attest to this from personal experience.

Consider creating a wellness program for optimal health that will allow you to run your home based business efficiently and effectively.

The first step in building your platform is to decide what your want your platform to say about who you are and what you have to offer.

Are you and author?

Do you have a product?

Are you a web designer?

Are you a copywriter?

Are you a publicist?

Are you a freelance writer?

Are you a marketer?

This is by no means a complete list of possibilities for platforms that showcase what you have to offer people who visit your online platform.

Consider how you will tell your story online. Is a website with a blog, a solo blog, and then what about social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and others best for getting your story online and in front of people to start creating relationships.

It’s hard to sell to people without them trusting you. You build trust through relationships and engagement with visitors to your platform.

Just like in life, it takes time to build relationships and trust. It takes patience and perseverance to make it online the right way. There are no shortcuts to building trust, you must prove your trust worthiness.

If you’re like me, long on ideas but short on cash, not wanting to go into debt to create your plat form, there are ways to create your platform using free sites.

You will have to choose which free platform resource(s) is right for you. Yes there is a learning curve since most will be Do-It-Yourself (DIY).

You’re probably thinking free means using the same templet as someone else, which is true, but it is about what you have to say on your platform that counts.

It is your content that will score your position on search engines and drive traffic to your platform if you are willing to put in the work required to get your platform into the online world call the Internet.

Your age or when you started doesn’t make a difference, you just need to start and work at it and learn even if you can afford to pay some one to build your platform for you. You should learn bout your platform even if you aren’t the one who built it. Learn some coding and learn about the host of your platform so you you can modify it if you have to.

Not knowing what’s going on in your platform can cause you problems with search engines.

Your content and frequency of fresh content is what rates with search engines and drives traffic with relevant content to what people are searching for.

How often you update your platform with fresh content is up to you but the more often.

“The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”

— Robert Benchley

Although I classify myself as a writer, blogger, editor, proofreader, and reviewer I am also learning branding, marketing, and social selling as integral parts of working as a freelancer.

“Taming the Freelance Market” is the working title of my book about freelancing. The more I write, the more that needs researching and include enough information for would be freelancers, entrepreneurs and small businesses without causing information overload.

Work independently and on temporary contracts rather than for a long-term employer

Freelance used as an Adjective:

Working for yourself

Freelance used as a Noun:

A writer or artist who sells services to different employers without a long-term contract with any of them

What does this mean in plain English?

As a freelancer, you must maintain impeccable records of income and expenses (record keeping for taxes), medical and dental insurance, marketing, Web design, anything related to business is up to you. Freelancers receive no befits from employers, because freelancers are considered independent contractors.

Depending on the services rendered by an independent contractor, you may receive remuneration, but no credit for your work, one example is a Ghostwriter.”

I then mention some of the many types of freelance jobs available in chapter one, not just writing jobs.

“Taming the Freelance Market” is about working for yourself as a freelancer, entrepreneur, small business, independent contractor or whatever pigeonhole you choose.

If any readers have a comment or suggestions about subject(s) dealing with being or becoming a freelancer please use my contact page and send me a note, ask a question or (hint) hire me for your blog or website..

I try to help everyone with questions about freelancing, publishing, and writing; if I don’t know an answer I research to find the answer. I learn by researching, answering questions, which are a form of teaching, I am still learning about, branding, marketing, and social media but will help you wherever I can.

Facebook, created years ago, has a growing membership in the multimillions. Facebook frequently changes their algorithms, with subsequent algorithm changes, organic page likes fluctuate as does post reach, unless an account holder pays for expanded reach. The more you pay the greater the reach, these costs for expanded reach range from five dollars to two hundred dollars. The more you are willing to purchase reach the greater the reach. Promotion and advertising reach will cost you whatever you can afford. The more you can afford the greater the reach.

What is Reach?

Reach simply put, is the number of people that will see your Facebook post or advertisement.

Is Pay to Play Right for Your Business?

First, no business should go into debt, to fund their business and reaching out for new customers and advertising. Going into debt to fund your business is one way you quickly go out of business.

NOTE: Never spend more than you can comfortable afford on your business from revenue.

If you are an entrepreneur, freelancer, or small business, how much can you budget for paying to play against revenue to run your business is an extremely important equation. This is part of your marketing budget expense. What can you realistically afford without leaving the business short of funding and operational expenses? All businesses must know this number at all times. Put your account hat on and keep a handle on your working capital and budget items.

Whether entrepreneur or freelancer, you are a business, this is something that you must keep in mind. You must also realize that the business income is not your money; the money belongs to the business for operation and growth, not for paying personal living expenses.

Under funding, is a major cause of businesses closing down. Can you afford to spend money you don’t have? Most people who spend more than they make are soon in deep financial trouble. Don’t be one of them!

If you plan is having money and time to be free by starting a business, don’t. For a business to be viable, you will be spending many hours, weeks, and months devoting both to the business.

There is a dramatic learning curve to creating a startup. Most startups cannot afford to outsource many of the day-to-day operations. In the beginning, these operations are up to you until the business can afford the costs of outsourcing which isn’t cheap.

This is what true pay to play is all about. You want to freelance, or create a startup; it is going to cost you to join the ranks of entrepreneur. Don’t spend what you don’t have from the business.

Some clients equate freelance writers with web designers wanting various languages such as Perl, Drupal, Joomla, building shopping carts, and more, this is programming, not freelance writing.

Other clients may request knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point, Adobe Pro, Quark, CRM, and CMS software, to name a few.

Newcomers to freelance writing will find it hard to acquire clients if they are not up to date on the various software programs listed above, and the software clients may be using in their business.

Freelance writers must have a working knowledge of copyright infringement, plagiarism, and the latest FTC rules if they work in the United States.

The quote below posted with permission from Tim McGuinness during a discussion about the question, “Can you reliably make a living freelance writing?”

”As a business that hires writers, you all need to understand the nature of the business models that now exist. When content became universal, it also lowered its value – not to me, but to the ultimate publishers of that content. In retail for example, the norm is to scrape content from other websites – retailers who consume vast amounts of content are not willing to pay much for it. If they can get duplicated content put up for $1 they will, until they get in trouble. What you all also need to understand it that a writer is just a part of a process – content production requires coordination, production management, quality assurance, and delivery mechanisms. These are all fixed costs, thus the writer makes less. There are still boutique projects out there, but increasingly, writing is a commodity job. You make as much as you produce. Sorry for the bad news, but this is the reality of the job now.” ~ Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.

Second, some clients specify work for writers in India, Philippines, and other non-native English countries around the world if you attempt to find jobs on the various job boards, which are content mills and can hurt reputations.

Competing against non-native English countries accepting low wages for assignments, do not quit your day job until you can continue living the lifestyle you are currently living.

It could take decades for you to become an overnight success as a newcomer to freelance writing and establishing a reputation as a quality writer.

Established writers have spent years building their reputation, many while working a day job and writing part-time until their writing could pay for their lifestyle. Established writers have credentials newcomers do not have, and must build by writing.

Building a portfolio of work takes time, hard work, education, writing, and patience.

Call me harsh, pessimistic, or overly critical, I prefer realist learning daily, while working on my PhD from the University of Hard Knocks.

Freelance writers must commit themselves to writing daily, learning new software, applying the rules of perfect grammar and punctuation in their writing to establish themselves as quality writers.

Freelance writers are entrepreneurs who must embody honesty, integrity, and quality along with transparency and authenticity in all they do.

A new form of marketing is building a business platform, networking, and building a following.

Writing is a business! One must spend the time and energy required to grow it into a successful enterprise. There are no short cuts if writers desire acceptance as serious writers of quality.

While going through my email, a usual task, to see if there was anything of interest.

I received some offers and because of past experiences knew that the offers meant money.

I hate “noreply” emails, anyway, to date, only a couple of people understand the phrase “I don’t have the money” to mean exactly that.

As a soon to be septuagenarian, I along with many others living on a fixed income do not desire to go into debt on dubious offers of some potential income while wondering if they should eat or purchase their medications for the month. Personally, I have ten medications, but only get nine because the pharmacy is having trouble getting my B-12 injectable required every other week.

Are sellers of webinars, books, programs, online training …etc. not getting the point that not everyone has money for books, programs … etc., and when they say they do not have money; that is what they mean.

The sellers are loath to offer any information about any free information because it might cut into their profit instead of helping information seekers of their journey toward knowledge.

What sellers fail to realize it that by helping a knowledge seeker, the seeker may one day be able to afford the sellers program; How about that?

I have questions

When did the philosophy of paying it forward disappear?

Am I that old or delusional to believe in paying it forward?

Has society become about the one with no regard for others?

I refuse to believe that offering products of services at a reasonable price is still a good practice, and quality is what entrepreneurs and businesses should offer as a standard while also offering the best customer service possible, and believing what customers tell you.

While earning my PhD from the University of Hard Knocks and a DIY marketer for my services, I am a firm believer in answering any and all questions in a philosophy of paying it forward.

I have some work in progress that will educate and inform readers in an honest way about the subject of freelancing, and procrastination. It might seem hard to some, but life is hard if you are willing to dabble into the realm of entrepreneurship.

I do not believe in sugar coating reality. One reality is that it may take years to become an overnight success through long hours and hard work.

There are no short cuts in life, just as there are no short cuts to being an authentic person, which also takes hard work.

I started mine because I wanted to help entrepreneurs, writers, and freelancers. I started out knowing little about running a business, with little money to put into the business, and working on obtaining my PhD at The University of Hard Knocks.

I started mine because I wanted to help entrepreneurs, writers, and freelancers from starting out knowing little about running a business with little money to put into the business, and learning through the University of Hard Knocks.

It is my desire to help readers of this blog, and highlight my writing in case someone would hire me for writing, editing or reviewing.

Being a real person, posts on this blog may be scheduled for early in the day, they are written by one person, never curated, no PLR (Private Label Rights), no MRR (Master Resale Rights), only 100 percent original writing.

It is my desire that this blog starts conversations, start thinking about what blogs should offer, and may engage readers with the content. Perhaps hired for one or more of my services by a blog visitor, ask a question about the services or about writing, marketing or social media as I am a believer in paying it forward.

Why did you start a blog?

There are many reasons to start a blog.

Blog about books in progress

Blog about books you have read

Host virtual book tours

Post book reviews

Blog about public figures’ tours, appearances, entertainment … etc.

Blog about your products, new product release date, or your services

Blog about your books with links where to purchase them

Blog about writing to help new writers

Blog about SEO, Marketing, Social Media, Networking … etc.

A blog is about what you choose as your subject. A blog should engage, establish relationships, engage readers, help your readers, and offer information that educates the reader about your product or service, about the subject you choose as the base of your blog.

The blog headline should inform the reader what to expect to find on your blog. It must be relevant to searches performed by searchers on the Internet.

If you have the money to outsource your marketing, DIY is not something you might care about, for those who cannot afford outsourcing costs, think about DIY marketing.

I call DIY marketing, grassroots marketing.

DIY obviously means you are doing your own marketing for a reason. The main reason is the expense of outsourcing your marketing, or it might be the fact that you just do not know who should be your outsourcer for marketing.

There are many outsourcers. The question is about experience in relation to cost. No outsourcer can guarantee an infusion of customers, traffic, conversions, or other so-called promises while being ethical in marketing your business, which is your brand reputation.

All brands should stand for honesty, integrity, and quality.

DIY Marketing is about establishing a brand that is authentic, helpful, respectful of customer’s needs, and transparent.

Marketing is about establishing relationships with potential and existing customers.

Helping customers determine the product or service that best suits their needs

Integrity in dealing with customers

Quality products or services

Understanding your customer

Understanding your customer’s needs

Unbelievably, word of mouth is still the best way to advertise and grow a business.

Social media is one of the largest wastes of time for any business.

From a personal perspective, social media is getting worse every day. More people are using social media to inform people about lunch, and other worthless non-relevant sharing of tasteless political, religious posts.

Individuals have the right to their opinions, and individuals have the right not read what people have to say.

When working with a mentor, is the mentor you are working with able to tailor the information to your business model.

Not all mentors are equal.

• Do they walk the talk?
• What is their background?
• What do they know about your business niche?
• What are they selling beside their time?
• Are they readily available for questions?
• How long have they been mentoring?
• Are they easy to work with?
• Are they teaching how to apply their knowledge?
• Do you understand what they are teaching?
• Do they teach customer service?

Working without a mentor is not as easy as working with a mentor, but the lessons are the same, and it takes time and hard work to make any business a success.

You can find a plethora of people that are ascribing that you should outsource much of the daily chores of a business, the problem is in the fact that they don’t tell you how to pay for outsourcing, in addition, not all outsources are of the caliber to perform with honesty, integrity, and quality.

Bad outsourcers are a reflection of your business, not the outsourcers since their name is not mentioned, your business, which is you, is the one whose reputation suffers.

A business is a reflection of the person running it. You are the brand, you are branding your morals and integrity; do it wrong and your business will suffer.